


Empty Heart and Heavy Hands

by TerrusDacktellus



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, Drabbles, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 13:01:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5586595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerrusDacktellus/pseuds/TerrusDacktellus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of Crush, Buffy experiences a dramatic change of heart and Spike can't believe his luck. In fact, the more he thinks about it, the less believable it seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty Heart and Heavy Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my 1k promptathon on Tumblr, filling the prompt, "S5 Post Crush Spuffy somehow sees the way that Spuffy is now in S10 (making out, feelings of trust, etc.)" from fictional-redheads. Warning, this may be a fluffy premise, but it is not a fluffy story! (but don't worry too much about the character death warning, it's nothing permanent).
> 
> This story is written in drabble form, 26 shorts of exactly 100 words each.

There was only one thing for it: he was going to have get royally, raging drunk. Spike’s hands shook as he poured Jack into a glass, spilling it onto the floor. He gave up and chugged straight from the bottle, draining the entire thing, before flinging it across the room with a satisfying crash. That was the stuff. The memory of Buffy’s face resurfaced, implacable and beautiful as she slammed the door on him and a sob began to build in his chest. He was groping around for more whiskey when he heard the door creak open behind him.

“Spike?”

* * *

“This is a dream,” he said faintly. Buffy laughed at him, a light, girlish sound he’d never thought to win from her.

“No.” Her smile was wide, charming — loving? The sheer shock of it was nearly blinding. “No dream. I just — I had a change of heart once I had time to think. I mean, we match, you and me. Your strength and my strength. Your darkness and my light. We … click.”

It was as if she was lifting the words directly from his own head.

“How?” he breathed in wonder and she silenced him with a kiss that seared.

* * *

They’d been kissing for what felt like hours. Or maybe years. Or seconds. Time lost all meaning when she was near. Between kisses they talked: he poured out his heart to her, and she listened, really listened, like no one else ever had, as he told her how desperately he loved her, how he could change for her, how wonderful they could be together.

“You don’t have to change for me,” she said, petting his hair. They were sitting in his battered armchair, her in his lap, drowning him with her scent. “I like you just the way you are.”

* * *

He tried, briefly, to be a gentleman about it.

“We should wait,” he argued as her busy hands burrowed their way under his clothes. “I mean, this is all fairly new —”

He broke off as she reached his cock and gripped it firmly.

“Fuck it,” he growled and tore off her shirt, attacking her mouth, her neck, her delectable breasts. He knew in a vague sort of way that he should savour this, was still more than half expecting her to come to her senses and bolt at any moment, but then her heat enveloped him and he was lost.

* * *

Morning came too soon.

“‘Spose you ought to be leaving,” he ventured. Buffy, who had been dozing with her head on his chest, jerked upright, her eyes wide and panicked.

“What do you mean?” she blurted. “Do you want me to leave?”

She was almost near tears and Spike lost his heart all over again to her for the thousandth time that night.  
“Never, pet. But won’t your mum be waiting?”

The tension drained out of her and she lay back down with a contented smile.

“Oh,” she said. “Let her wait.”

Dazed with astonished love, Spike held her closer.

* * *

She woke him shortly before twilight to explain that she was going home to shower and change clothes. The fear that she wouldn’t return gripped him instantly but he hid it, afraid his insecurities would chase her off where all the other seemingly insurmountable obstacles had failed.

“Whatever you like, love,” he told her.

“I’ll be back, you know,” she said, finding yet again the exact words his heart longed for. “Wanna patrol with me later?”

“Darling, I thought you’d never ask,” he said, taking a calculated risk. She squealed at the pet name and covered his face in kisses.

* * *

They’d always made a good team, but this was beyond his wildest expectations. They moved together flawlessly, stalking the night as though they’d practised for years, sliding between gravestones, cornering their prey and striking in one seamless union. It was nearly as good as fucking.

“Buffster, there you are!”

Spike grimaced as they turned to find the brat pack, bumbling around and getting in the way as usual.

“Where have you been?”

“Haven’t seen you in days!”

“Worried sick!”

He winced at the clamour of anxious voices, waiting for the inevitable rejection. Buffy shrugged.

“I’ve been busy,” she said coolly.

* * *

She was wilder than usual that night, as if the shared violence had fired her up. Spike groaned as she ripped off his clothes, clawed him, bit him, fucked him like her life depended on it. As they neared their frenzied crescendo, she rolled, pulling him on top of her.

“Bite me,” she gasped. Spike stopped, stupefied.

“Wha — Buffy, are you sure you want to —”

“I’m sure,” she said, her hips still pumping urgently against his. “Spike,” she moaned, when he remained frozen. “Please. I love you. I trust you.”  
There was no pain when his fangs pierced her neck.

* * *

“So this is where you’ve been staying?”

Spike woke to raised voices and an empty bed. Confused, he jerked on his trousers and followed the sounds of an argument upstairs. Of all the things he’d expected to see in the middle of his grubby crypt, Joyce Summers with her floral, motherly scent was probably last on the list.

“This is what I want, Mom.” Buffy’s voice sounded strange, almost harsh.

“I see.” Joyce’s frosty eyes lit on him and he flinched involuntarily.

“I didn’t expect this from you, William,” she said icily. It felt like a slap to the face.

* * *

As usual, it was his mouth that started the trouble.

“Don’t you miss them?” he asked. The question had been burning inside him all through their time together. No matter how often she told him that she loved him, he couldn’t help but wonder why she never mentioned her little Scooby friends, her stuffy watcher, her mother or even the little sis anymore. He was surprised to find that he missed her fussing over them like a mother hen.

“Why would I?” she said. “I have you.”

For the first time, he felt the emptiness in her blindingly beautiful smile.

* * *

After that first glimpse, he began to see it everywhere. He saw that when they talked, he did most of the talking, while she only ever seemed to echo his opinions. He began trying to provoke her as he hadn’t dared before, when he was still terrified that she would leave, and found that she always agreed with him placidly, even when he blatantly contradicted something he’d said earlier.

He saw it too when they went on the hunt together, the way she ignored victims in need of help, thrilling only in the chase and the glory of the fight.

* * *

A sick feeling began to grow inside him.

“What about Glory?” he would ask her. “Aren’t you worried she’s cooking up some mischief for Dawn?”

And she would shrug and smile, and pet his hair in just the way he liked (even though he’d never told her he liked it) and say, “The others will take care of that. You’re my priority.”

He knew she talked to them sometimes, that they fought with her and tried to convince her to leave him, but still she stayed, and smiled, and talked ever so sweetly, ever so lovingly. It was a lie.

* * *

What was the old saying? If something looks like it’s too good to be true, it probably is. Spike slipped out of bed while Buffy was sleeping and paced the room. He needed to think.

 _Spike, ol’ lad,_ he told himself. _You’ve been played for a bloody fool yet again._

How stupid to think she could really love him, especially after that moronic stunt with Dru and the chains. No, this was fake, a trick somehow. That radiant girl in his bed wasn’t Buffy, couldn’t be her, and yet he couldn’t stomach the thought of ending it. _Better than nothing._

* * *

It was inevitable that her little friends would make some final, desperate attempt to pry them apart. He suspected Buffy knew they were after him because wherever he went, she was glued to his side, more so than usual, her eyes wary and watchful. In the end, they went for a full scale assault, storming the crypt with fire and crossbows and Buffy erupted. She was magnificent in battle but when she hit Xander, sent him flying across the room to spatter his brains against the wall, even Spike couldn’t lie to himself anymore. He couldn’t love her like this.

* * *

He didn’t sleep for three days after they took the boy’s body away. Buffy worried about him, tried to feed him blood and whiskey and chicken wings, read to him and held his head in her lap, all the while the perfect, perfect girlfriend and never shedding a tear for her dead friend.

It wasn’t as though he felt guilty, he argued with himself. He’d never cared for him, a whiny weakling clinging to Buffy’s coattails. No, it wasn’t guilt. But it hurt him, to see the emptiness eating away the heart of the woman he loved. It wasn’t her.

* * *

The white witch didn’t want to talk to him. Hardly surprising. Had Red been around to protect her, Spike would never have dared approach Tara but as it was, she was the only person who could possibly help him.

“Please,” he blurted before she could run. “Buffy’s in trouble.”

He told her what he needed and, still looking like she wanted to flee, she raised a hand and focused on his aura.

“You’re under a spell,” she told him. “A powerful one.”

Now, who did he know who was vindictive, recently rejected and powerful enough to cast such a spell?

* * *

Drusilla did not look surprised to see him.

“Back so soon, my Spike?” she said archly. “Changed your mind perhaps?”

He ignored the part of him that wanted to run to her and drown in her as always, marched straight up to her and slammed her against the wall.

“What. Did. You. Do?” he ground out.

“Have you got what you wanted, Spike? Exactly what you wanted and nothing else? Does your sweet slayer taste like ashes?”

He shook her. “Tell me!”

“I made a wish,” she said, her dark eyes sparkling madly. “I wished and the stars heard me.”

* * *

Buffy was getting antsy.

“When will you be back?” she whined down the phone, and he wondered how he could ever have thought that was real.

“Soon, kitten, soon,” he said distractedly. Convincing her not to come to L.A. with had taken some doing, but somehow, he didn’t feel like she’d appreciate him trying to undo whatever it was the spell had created between them. Come to think of it, he wasn’t sure it was such a brilliant idea himself. This was, he knew, the closest he’d ever come to having her. So why the fuck wasn’t it enough?

* * *

He was lucky Angel was distracted by Dru and Darla’s shenanigans because there was no way he’d get away with stomping around his turf like this otherwise. Spike prowled through his third trashed demon bar of the night, kicking broken chairs and shards of glass out of the way as he headed for the back. No one in L.A. knew anything about a vengeance demon operating in the area, or rather no one was stupid enough to admit to it. But here, according to what he’d beaten out of the patrons, lurked something of an expert on the subject.

* * *

Summon the demon, destroy the amulet. The old geezer in the bar had made it sound so simple, but now, with the materials for the spell assembled in front of him, Spike was struggling. He could give it up now. Who cared about Dru’s little revenge? She didn’t know him as well as she thought was all. He had Buffy, had her love, had the undivided female attention he’d always craved. Why not go back to her right now and be sodding happy with what he had for once? On an impulse, he grabbed the phone and called the Bronze.

* * *

“Spike? Oh, thank God, I thought you weren’t gonna call tonight.”

Her voice washed over him like sunshine. He could picture her, standing by the counter at the Bronze, waiting anxiously for his call.

“Do you love me, kitten?” he asked.

“You know I do!” She sounded anxious, soft, quick breathing right in his ear. “You know I love you, baby. What’s wrong?”

“Why?” The question he’d never dared voice aloud before.

“I … I don’t know.” She sounded confused. “I just do.”

“I love you,” he said, trying to pour his heart into the words. “Don’t forget that, Buffy, please.”

* * *

Incense, check. Weird, eldritch symbols, check. Incipient heart break, check. Spike looked over the text of the ritual one more time, mouthing the words to himself. He had expected to feel something: the nervous excitement that always preceded a big fight, maybe, or the kind of splitting, splintering pain that had ripped through him when Dru had left him. Instead he felt — nothing. Just a cold, hollow numbness where the feelings used to be. Heart empty, hands heavy, he picked up the book and started to read.

There was a crack and an electric shivering of the air.

“Hello, William.”

* * *

A demon in the form of the woman who’d broken his heart and effectively ended his life as a human had just smashed his head through the wall of his shitty motel and yet this still wasn’t the worst plan he’d ever had. Spike wrenched himself away, feinted a low jab, then belted the bint across the face. She staggered away, spitting teeth, and he felt like himself again for what seemed like the first time in months.

“Stop,” she sputtered as he advanced. A little less smug now, bitch.

“She’ll never love you,” she screeched desperately and Spike hesitated.

* * *

The amulet glowed in his hand, power coming off it in waves. On the floor, beaten to a pulp, Cecily grabbed weakly for his ankle, the only thing she could reach.

“You’ll be alone,” she hissed. “Forever. No one will want you, her least of all. Why not take what you have?” Her voice turned low, husky, painting a seductive image. “Her in your bed, fighting at your side, isn’t it enough? She doesn’t know any better.”

“If I can’t have all of her, I’d rather — oh, sod it,” he said, and smashed the jewel in a shower of sparks.

* * *

He was hunting through his crypt for booze, desperate to ward off the sickening humiliation that threatened to cripple him, when he felt a flood of pain so intense that he fell to his knees, cutting his palms on broken glass when they hit the floor. He’d lost something; no, he’d lost everything, he was torn apart inside by the emptiness where it had been — only what was it? Amid the dark blur of pain, Buffy’s face shone like an avenging sun. Confused, agonised, Spike curled into a ball, assaulted by a wild longing for something that had never existed.

* * *

_Slayer, slayer, burning bright, in the graveyards of the night._

Spike watched the love of his unlife whirl through the gloom, the pale fire of her hair, the poetry of her limbs. She spotted him and her face hardened.

“What the hell do you want?” she snapped.

“The pleasure of your company,” he said, not bothering to hide his leer as he watched her pretty breasts heave. She made a revolted noise and hit him, right on the nose. Spike lay on the ground, resetting the cartilage and wondering why he was so happy to see her angry with him.


End file.
